Free Republic

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) -- Caterpillar Inc. is no longer giving money to the Boy Scouts because the organization discriminates against homosexuals, a spokeswoman for the Illinois-based heavy equipment manufacturer confirmed Thursday. The company's move wasn't directly tied to the recent Boy Scouts decision to continue to bar homosexual adults from roles within the organization while allowing openly gay children to be scouts. Instead, spokeswoman Rachel Potts said, the company decided to cut off funding while reviewing a request for $25,000 that came in last year from a local group in Illinois. That decision was never announced publicly or communicated to...

Boy Scouts of America says it is disappointed Caterpillar Inc. will no longer give money to the group. But public relations director Deron Smith on Thursday thanked the Peoria-based heavy equipment manufacturer for its past support. Caterpillar spokeswoman Rachel Potts said Thursday that the Caterpillar Foundation has decided to withdraw its supports for Boy Scouts of America. Potts says the company believes the group's policy barring homosexual adults from serving as scout leaders is discriminatory.

The Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution Wednesday expressing its opposition to the Boy Scouts of America’s new policy allowing gay Scouts, though it doesn’t explicitly call for churches to drop all ties with the organization.While some action against the Scouts was widely anticipated, given the denomination’s very public opposition to the change, the resolution takes a softer tone than many had expected. It also calls on the Boy Scouts to remove executive and board leaders who tried to allow gays as both members and leaders without consulting the many religious groups that sponsor troops. It passed overwhelmingly, but not...

HOUSTON (AP) - Southern Baptist Convention leaders have proposed a resolution expressing their opposition to the Boy Scouts of America's new policy allowing gay Scouts. The resolution also calls on the Boy Scouts to remove from executive and board leadership the individuals who earlier sought to allow gays as both members and leaders without consulting the many religious groups that sponsor Scout troops. While the resolution does not recommend that Southern Baptists drop ties with the Scouts, it expresses support for those churches and families that decide to do so. It also encourages churches and families who choose to remain...

The persecution of the Boy Scouts is just one more example of how pernicious it is to argue that tax exemptions equal governmental endorsement and subsidization. Our civil society is supposed to be diverse and tolerant. If our nonprofits aren’t allowed to hold sharply different points of view, to teach their members different outlooks on life, to disagree about the best ways of life, then our nation has ceased to be free, much less tolerant or diverse. ... Amazing, isn't it, that a gay rights group is attacking the Boy Scouts in a way that the Bull Connors of Alabama...

For Dennis Ebersole, the fallout from the Boy Scouts of America's decision to change a century of policy and allow openly gay Scouts to participate wasn't long in coming. "Within 12 hours of the announcement that the membership standards resolution had passed, I was contacted by five other members in my pack leadership committee, questioning whether they were going to continue Scouting," said Mr. Ebersole, a den leader with Cub Scout Pack 282 in South Riding, Va. The reaction was equally quick for Gary Hiden, an assistant scoutmaster of Troop 268 in New Market, Md., who has been involved with...

Do not suppose that your enemies will be placated by your surrender. You will be pressured to accept openly homosexual scoutmasters, then “transgender” girls who say they are boys or the Prince of Wales or male aliens from Alpha Centauri 3, then girls generally for all your programs, as they’ve done in Canada, only to see their membership go the way of the Church of Canada, since no one will stand up for someone who stands for nothing. 
 You have betrayed your friends to assuage your enemies. May they treat you more handsomely than you have treated us.

Bookmark this thread: here are most of the news articles recently posted on FreeRepublic regarding the Boy Scouts National Meeting in May that resulted in gay scouts being admitted to membership. They are listed from newest, June 4, 2013, to oldest, June 24, 2012. Although some articles posted were duplicates, their links are included if they carried more than a few comments. These are not all the Boy Scout articles posted on FR; just the ones concerning the issue of so-called homosexual children being admitted to Boy Scouts. A few vanities and blog posts were not included, nor articles with...

Having watched the news coverage and read numerous emails from concerned Baptists and Scouters, I contacted the Membership Impact Department at the National Office of the Boy Scouts of America, proposing an interpretation of the changes in the membership guidelines. Below is the text of what I offered as my interpretation. First, it is my understanding that the resolution clearly states that sexual activity among Scout-aged youth is contrary to Scouting virtues, and I take that to mean that so long as it is uniformly and equitably applied, a unit could have in its statement a list of behavioral expectations...

<p>Despite a directive from a leader of the Great Salt Lake Council of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), prohibiting scouts from advocating political or social positions, some scouts and adult supporters of Scouts for Equality wore their uniforms Sunday as they marched in Utah’s gay pride parade.</p>

"The recent decision by the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America to allow 'openly gay' youth to become members of the Boy Scouts was nothing short of a betrayal -- a betrayal not only of the values scouting has represented for decades but also of the families whose support for the Scouts has spanned generations. ... It's worth noting that the law does NOT require the change in Scouts' policy: the ban on homosexual members was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court, which affirmed the right of the Boy Scouts to remain true to their mission and...

The Boy Scouts of America’s newly adopted policy of accepting gay Scouts “is not in conflict with Catholic teaching” and parishes should continue to sponsor scouting, according to a letter from the U.S. Catholic church’s liaison to the Scouts. “We should be encouraged that the change in BSA’s youth membership standard is not in conflict with Catholic teaching” which is that gays “are to be treated with the same signity due all human beings created by God,” Edward Martin, chairman of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, wrote in a letter. “Scouting is still the best youth-serving program available to...

Tulsa’s largest United Methodist church is considering dropping its scouting program after the Boy Scouts of America decided to allow homosexual boys to participate. “We’re leaning in that direction. I don’t know exactly what we’ll do,” said the Rev. Tom Harrison, senior pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church, 6767 S. Mingo Road. The Boy Scouts’ decision can be troubling for troop-sponsoring churches whose denominations oppose the practice of homosexuality. The United Methodist Church, a major supporter of Boy Scouts, has maintained that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. “We find this to be a very troubling decision,”...

• The Boy Scouts of America is proud to announce that Kevin Burton achieved the rank of Eagle Scout on May 10, 2013. Kevin’s Eagle project was to plan and lead 26 volunteers in widening the trail at the Brown Canyon Nature Loop hiking trail for the U.S. Forest Service. The volunteers increased the width of the trail by three times. Kevin is a member of Troop 464 that is sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and meets at St. Andrews Church, Kino Hall on Mondays at 6:30 p.m. in Sierra Vista. • The Boy Scouts of America is proud...

Last week, the Boy Scouts of America made its landmark decision allowing gay Scouts to be members (but not adult leaders), and while many liberal organizations are pleased, America’s largest Protestant church organization seems poised to cut off ties with the Boy Scouts in protest. More than 70 percent of Boy Scout troops across the country are sponsored by religious organizations. Many sponsorships come from the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination with more than 47,000 churches. Now, Frank Page, president of the SBC's executive committee, says it’s time for its congregations to cut all ties with the Boy...

(Newser) – The Boy Scouts of America's decision last month to allow gay members was made with the blessings of many churches and religious groups—but not all of them. And here's a pretty significant opponent: The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America with 45,000 congregations and 16 million members, says it will now urge its followers to leave the Scouts, reports CNN. The Boy Scouts says Baptist churches currently sponsor nearly 4,000 units, containing more than 100,000 kids. The Southern Baptist Convention will vote on a resolution to disaffiliate with the Scouts this month, and a spokesperson...

Boy Scouts and adult volunteers wore their uniforms Sunday as they marched in Utah's gay pride parade — defying a leader of the youth organization who had said they couldn't do so under the organization's guidelines prohibiting advocating political or social positions.

For many years the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) has been licking its lips at the thought of legalizing sodomy with little boys. Raping little boys with impunity is all these loathsome scumbags think about day and night. Unencumbered by the responsibilities of living a normal life, NAMBLA members are able to put all of their efforts, time and money into bringing about the satanic kingdom they long for. They will do anything to get their way. NAMBLA follows a kind of paraphrase of the famous bank robber Willie Sutton who once said he robbed banks “because that’s...

(CNN) – For Southern Baptist pastor Tim Reed, it was Scripture versus the Scouts. “God’s word explicitly says homosexuality is a choice, a sin,” said Reed, pastor of First Baptist Church of Gravel Ridge in Jacksonville, Arkansas. So when the Boy Scouts of America voted to lift its ban on openly gay youths on May 24, Reed said the church had no choice but to cut its charter with Troop 542. “It’s not a hate thing here,” Reed told CNN affiliate Fox 16. “It’s a moral stance we must take as a Southern Baptist church.” Southern Baptist leaders say Reed...

The Boy Scouts of America will likely continue banning atheists and other non-believers from their troops, even though it now accepts openly gay members among its ranks. "I don't see that happening, at least not in the immediate future," said Neil Polzin, an Eagle Scout fired from his job in 2009 as a Boy Scout camp aquatics director, after he admitted he is an atheist. "The focus has always been on the Scouts' discrimination against gays and it seems atheists were always on a back burner or not discussed at all," Polzin told The Christian Century. Since May 23, when...